


Alive Again

by startaroux



Series: Hotel Merry [3]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, F/F, Past Character Death, Pining, Theft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startaroux/pseuds/startaroux
Summary: After over 90 years of haunting these hallways, Nami suddenly finds herself learning how to feel again. She also seems to be in the right place at the wrong time.
Relationships: Nami/Nefertari Vivi
Series: Hotel Merry [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1531871
Comments: 18
Kudos: 49





	Alive Again

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, I'm back with more ghosts for your consideration. You don't *necessarily* have to have read the other parts to get what's going on here, but if you like this, then you might like them as well. For context, though, Nami died in 1928 and now haunts a place called Hotel Merry along with all the other straw hats.
> 
> Please be warned, this doesn't have a super happy ending, seeing as she's dead.

It was always the same. 

Day in, day out, never eating, never sleeping, never dreaming. Passing on through like even her very existence was a hoax. 

She couldn’t touch, couldn’t taste, couldn’t _feel anything_.

She was nothing.

Nami once went a whole decade without speaking to another soul, alone in her thoughts and her memories of a time long passed.

92 years of this... this _hell_ passed by steady like a river’s current. She hadn’t even noticed.

There was no life in her, only death. She felt nothing and she was nothing.

Until... _her_.

-*-*-*-

Every day, she watches her.

That beautiful woman with the sky blue hair. What a unique, delightful color that is.

She always comes to this place -- this hotel -- every morning, and Nami is always present to catch a glimpse of her smiling face as she passes through the doors.

There’s something about this woman that almost makes Nami remember what her heartbeat once felt like. She’s captivating.

When she leaves every evening, Nami is always there to see her off and begin patiently counting the minutes for her return. 

When was the last time she felt excitement like this? Or, at all?

Sometimes she thinks the woman sees her -- and maybe she does. The woman will let a small gasp escape from her pretty lips as though she were startled, and then brush it off with a chuckle and continue on with her day.

Nami absolutely lives for those moments. Or she _would,_ if...

She isn’t quite capable of laughing in the face of her own death just yet. Not like Brook. Just the thought of that man’s sense of humor sours her mood entirely.

Either way, Nami would much rather be thinking about Vivi.

It’s a gorgeous name, really. Soft, like comfortable laughter between friends.

It doesn’t take very long for Nami to learn it. She hears the hotel owner -- Jinbe, a jolly fellow -- greet her as she arrives one morning. 

Nami takes that name and hides it away for safekeeping. Whispers it to herself when she’s sure no one else is around to hear. 

She learned long ago when she was alive that most don’t take too kindly to women who love other women. It’s best she keeps that to herself. 

That new kid, Luffy. He says that a lot of things have changed out in the world of the living.

But have they? Truly?

What a rascal. Doesn’t he know that some things never change?

Besides, what would the others think of her? A dead girl enamored with a living one? 

If it were anyone but herself, Nami would have called them pathetic.

Still, she brings Vivi gifts sometimes. Trinkets, jewelry, whatever she can get her hands on and lift off of the hotel guests. 

She’s found through trial and error that the more attached they are to the items -- the more special they are -- the easier it is for her to take them.

It’s a bit sad, but Nami doesn't really give a damn.

See, ol' Red got her start as a pickpocket way back when. Was naught but eight years of age when she pulled off her first theft and the rest was history. Even in the afterlife, she doesn't stop.

Nami leaves the valuables in places she knows Vivi -- and only Vivi -- will find them. In her pockets, her purse, her favorite chair she likes to sit in during breaks.

Vivi never keeps the gifts, of course. Nami doesn't think she ever will. Without fail, she always gives them back to their respective owners when they check out to leave. 

Still, Nami can’t bring herself to be bitter about it. Vivi is much too good of a person and far too honest to accept gifts she knows were stolen.

But... the realization that Vivi _knows_ they were stolen, and knows _who_ they were stolen by, no less? That’s practically thrilling.

The possibility that she could take center stage in Vivi's mind even for a second is too tempting to give up.

-*-*-*-

Nami’s been spotted a few times before by that man. The bloody one with the green hair.

By the time he'd shown up here, lost as all hell, Nami was already weary of this afterlife and hadn't been particularly bothered to learn his name.

Lately, though, he won't mind his own damn business. 

He once looked her right in the eye and tried to force her to come to grips with the truth of her sorry situation. 

She didn’t like it one bit. 

"You’re wastin’ your time," he had said with no provocation. "That girl’s alive. You’re not."

Now, the truth often hurts, but Red Nami was never the type of woman who would allow a man to make her feel discouraged.

"What is _time_ to any of us, anyway?" She'd bitten back. "And what do you care how I spend mine?"

He just scoffed at her. The _audacity_ of this cad.

"I don’t. But..."

Nami narrowed her eyes at the bloody fiend, allowing him to continue. 

She never understood why he wouldn't just hide his wounds. Even for a ghost, that slash across his chest was horrible.

"Just forget it."

And at that, he ascended up and away and into the ceiling. Mighty rude, if you ask Nami.

She still hasn't the slightest clue what he’d meant to say to her. 

“Forget it?” Not a problem.

All Nami knows is that the words of men have never been enough to persuade her before, and they certainly aren't enough now.

Nami will keep watching and stealing and leaving gifts for Vivi for as long as she’s mired in this purgatory. 

She’ll remain the thief she’s always been, because every time Vivi finds one of those gifts, she laughs. 

She _laughs._

She laughs, and it’s the most beautiful sound Nami’s ever heard in life or in death or wherever the hell she ends up next.

But the best part? The best part is when Vivi shakes her head and says, "Oh, Miss Nami. Stealing from the guests again, are we?"

Hearing her own name spoken from those lips alone is enough to keep her spirit going for millennia.

It's enough to make her feel alive again.

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave a comment so I'll know how you felt about it :) Thanks for reading!
> 
> [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nopleaseexplain) | [Tumblr](https://ruskaina.tumblr.com/)


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